Browning Road

By Jeff Marlowe

Jack Pszcynack is watching his world and his town practically burn down in front of him. It was something else to grow up as a kid in the eighties, yet time is hardly on his side. Jack does not only have to live with a last name that no one can pronounce; yet he also endures a verbally (and occasionally phys

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capablanca Books
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735891743

Jeff Marlowe

Jeff Marlowe lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, marketing and writing at a major law firm. He considers Philadelphia, along with the surrounding Pennsylvania and New Jersey area his home. Jeff holds a master's degree in English Literature, and has taught English and writing courses at various colleges and universities throughout the country. Never Going Home is his debut novel, with many more books to follow. For more information, visit www.jeffmarlowebooks.com

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Browning

Road

Jeff Marlowe

Browning Road

Copyright © 2021 Jeff Marlowe

All Rights Reserved

www.jeffmarlowebooks.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021921066

ISBN: 978-1-7358917-3-6 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7358917-4-3 (eBook)

Capablanca Books

Philadelphia, PA

Publisher’s Note:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Also by

Jeff

Marlowe

Available by Capablanca Books

Never Going Home

www.jeffmarlowebooks.com

That was then, and that was us.

Chapter One

Don’t Sell to No Blacks

I told them not to sell to no blacks, my mother said to my father and brother; though not so much to me, and all with a not-so-subtle air of indulgence in her own pride. This was sadly typical. I was only seven at the time. Nonetheless, I could still see it. She went to the screen door and looked across the street to our neighbors, the Coyles, who had just put a for sale sign on the front lawn of their house that morning, and she smirked. Up until then, I didn’t recall anyone moving from our block before, though it must have happened at some point. It was probably the same scenario we had that day. One by one they came visiting; some alone, some in pairs. Nothing arranged, but all the same consistent, and civil enough. The neighbors didn’t crowd around the Coyle’s house with torches and pitchforks like in the old Frankenstein movies, they just might as well have.

What did they say? my dad asked with our basset hound, Christy, at his feet. She was always wanting to be petted again, and he indulged. That dog didn’t care how much she would trip over her own big ears, as long as there was someone to play with, and the tail kept whipping. Amazingly for that house, that was one happy animal. Old Joe Pszcynack only showed affection to the dog. That’s why we needed her, despite my mother’s initial objections to getting a pet of any kind. I’m glad we had the dog then; it was just never enough.

My mother closed the door entirely and put one hand on her overweight hip; she never exercised and was practically addicted to candy and it showed. Growing sideways and more frowning than smiling every single year, even back then. It never stopped the habits though. Some long for hollow sympathy over actual solutions.

They said ‘okay.’ They knew we weren’t fucking around, she explained. I was over there with Arlene and she told them not to sell to no blacks either. We said we were sorry to see them go and wished them luck in their new home. Bob and Marion are retired, they worked until they were both fifty years old and put food on their table, so they earned it. The Cooks went by their house earlier and talked to them, Ernie and Grace Bergen walked over there, and they told me they told them not to sell to no blacks. The Lanzas told them not to sell to no blacks either.

The false look of confidence on her face was only reassured by the fact that pretty much everyone on the block said what she said, and more importantly, thought what she thought. All this, unfortunately, was always essential. If everyone is doing it, well then, it’s not wrong. That’s how it always worked, and principally how it still does. Lack of guilt by association. These people were raising children.

My mother turned from the door, as if anyone else could know what she was saying. It’s not about what one says, but who hears it and when. Sensitive about sensitivity.

Even Cathy and Jean and all the rest of my friends will ask if the Coyles are selling to any blacks, she continued. None of them have this kind of problem where they live. There’s no blacks anywhere near their neighborhoods. But they would move if they did, it’s not just me.

The friends. Very rarely was anything not about her clique of girlfriends. Even when they were not even there, they were there. Always. Anything and everything got back to them and all decisions and judgements were somehow weighed by their very existence. Barbara Pszcynack cared about what they might know, or more so, perceived.

Well, they get the point, my dad said, looking out the window through the shades at the Coyles. If it were anyone else leaving and them staying, they wouldn’t want any niggers living here either. They can move if they want, but just don’t fuck us over. Don’t leave us to watch the damn neighborhood fall apart. We don’t deserve it, we’re good neighbors.

My dad didn’t walk over to the Coyles house with them that day, even though he’d known them just as long as anyone. He simply didn’t talk much. In fact, my friends often told me they never heard him speak a single word. What they didn’t realize is that was actually a good thing.

They are already busing the niggers up from 36th street to Joey and Jack’s school, he says. They belong in Camden. I saw one ride his bike down the street a few weeks ago; he should know better, the shit we have to put up with.

That man wore a steady frown on his face every day of his life, along with the constant shaking of his head, somehow in permanent disapproval. I can hardly remember seeing him do one or the other, not even one time. Everyone in that house understood the Coyle situation perfectly that day, except me. I actually got it, I did, though I just never accepted it the same way. Though that in turn was always an issue; it doesn’t really work unless everyone agrees. Like it or not, they can always tell if you don’t.

Charming fellow was my father. Everyday his beer gut somehow got bigger and the rings of graying hair on his head somehow got thinner. Round headed racism on wheels. He barely spoke half a sentence without using that particular word, which even then I knew not to say in front of black people, I didn’t think it should be used at all. Though in my dad’s lame defense, he would never say that if the right people were not listening. Regardless, the Coyles put their house up for sale that day. That’s where it all began. We didn’t move for a long while, much longer, actually. But it happened, they all saw it was coming. This was the state of Browning Road in the late eighties. This was Pennsauken, and this was its history.

I supposed this is when my parents considered selling our home, or their home as they put it so often. The house we lived in wasn’t mine. I didn’t own it, and even as a little kid, I had to be reminded of that, with all too much frequency. They didn’t want to leave town; and they actually sank a lot of money into their house before the Coyle’s departure. Most of it for converting our old musty basement into a really comfortable entertainment room which even had a small bar my dad loved. It’s also where Christy loved to lay down and cool off in the summer.

That was that house and that’s what was happening that day, more neighbors coming by the Coyles to ensure they were straightened out. I never took notice of time then, easy as it later became, at least in retrospect. It was the eighties. Better times. I didn’t have to notice, I was living it, and enjoying it, such as it was. My light green house, the white shudders adorned with green grass and bushes where I found a bird’s nest upon and once a garden snake under. I ran clean down the street that day. Whatever wildlife in that eighties suburbia continued to frolic under the breeze and sun while their human masters so pathetically endeavored to stop the clock hands from turning. That was somehow something I could notice. I suppose I hated change too.

I didn’t want to move; this was my hometown. It’s where I was born and therefore where I am from. The video store was in walking distance, so was the 7-11, and they sold comics. My friends were in that town and I didn’t want to lose them, and certainly not over skin color alone. That might have been enough for all the so-called adults, but not for me. If we moved frankly at any time before I graduated high school, there would be no hometown at all. Not for me, anyway. Fractured. Displaced. That was real. No perception needed.

Pennsauken itself is a suburb of Philadelphia, where my parents are from, where my grandmother still lived, and my dad worked every day. It’s in New Jersey but we always thought of it as Philly. We are into the Flyers, not the Devils, get it? New York City might as well be London, England for all we cared. Our town was always a predominantly one-color town, at least it was for many years. Incredible how that’s how it always was really sticks. It was there. That was long before all the white flight.

Pennsauken is not only a quick drive to Philly, but the town itself borders Camden, New Jersey. Since apparently forever, Camden had the documented reputation for being the most dangerous city in America for poverty and crime (drugs, prostitution, rape, you name it), high statistics all around. Dubious honor.

Even during Camden’s highest crime eras, Pennsauken remained a predominantly white middle-class suburban town. I never asked my parents why they chose to move there from the city a year before I was born, and they never seemed comfortable enough to answer anyway. I figured it out over time. That’s what happens when one thinks.

My own first real experience with these evidently important race issues was when I was in second grade. That was only a year pre-Coyle-sale, it just seemed so much longer. Joey was in fifth grade I think at that time; most if not all my classmates happened to be white before then. It was what it was, and we didn’t ask questions, nor were we expected to. I remember while we were all waiting for our teachers to start the day, my friends and I, who all walked to Longfellow Elementary School, were watching the yellow buses arrive from all over town. The recently closed Amon Heights Elementary, closer to Camden in proximity, brought all of those displaced students to Longfellow; and my friends and I would call it the black bus, having no idea we were being racist at the time. It was all done matter-of-factly.

In our defense, we never considered this a problem. Yet the bus from Amon was in fact all black students, with the exception of Brandy Welcher, she was in my grade. Brandy had a crush on me for years. Her younger sister was cuter though; it was just the way she wore that red hair. Even still, we noticed the predominant skin pigment on that bus, no one was blind. My brother and his friends hated this new dynamic, though felt no inclination to tell us why. Everything was changing. Matters in Pennsauken were what they were. I had even more to lose but somehow was far less threatened than all the grown-ups on the block. Change always made grown-ups really cranky. Delicate to their own articulate encouragement, if they truly had any. Were they really superior?

Eventually my parents stopped coddling each other over the Coyle confrontation; my dad went back to the T.V., my mom to the phone to make sure all her friends knew this was happening and she had it under control. Joey was not taking any notice of me during that conversation. The for-sale sign on the lawn across the street was a serious matter, far above my relevance level. I escaped upstairs to my room, my own personal kingdom then, and forever after in my heart, admittedly. My mom hated how much time I spent in that room. It made her look bad.

But it was mine. I decorated it with lots of comic book posters, lots of comics to read, aging toys to play with but I grew up in the eighties and we had the best stuff as kids. We had a far worse economic condition later on as adults for sure, but for the culture, that was a great time to be a kid. I think I still have old G. I. Joe and He-Man toys in a box somewhere but back then they were front and center. My parents and brother looked down on me for being a kid, maybe more so for enjoying it sometimes. I suppose someone always has to be below. I would never remotely bend to any such will. That created a few problems.

Another reason I kept my room fairly clean for a kid was I needed room to play with all this stuff, to stretch out and read. I loved comic books but had real books too. I had the essentials and more, Lord of the Rings, Dune, Choose Your Own Adventure, so many greats. I always preferred the books over the movies, even at that age; and my mom liked taking me to the library because it was free.

I also kept a row of cassette tapes on a table, all organized by favorites and release dates. I loved rock and roll like Bon Jovi and Guns N Roses (parents back then didn’t get bent out of shape over content as much as they do now) and I even had some Michael Jackson tapes. My mom often told me not to play those when my dad was around. The King of Pop was of a certain color, after all.

I even kept the Fireball Island board game out of the box and on display in that room because it was just that awesome. My friends never wanted to play it as much as I did. I knew not to do so with Joey, he would break it if he lost, or if he simply felt like humiliating me for a lark. That was always possible, more likely, actually. Nothing like being expected to win and always failing. The worst thing I could do was not play a game that was rigged.

That was my own world, the room was the first and maybe best place in his own history that Jack Pszcynack could really call his own, even at that young age. I try to avoid even saying that word most of the time. I hate my last name. It’s pronounced Puh-shin-yack, I forever had to explain, the name being of Polish ancestry. That and the very fact that no one could ever pronounce it was and it is still a major cause of concern, and frankly pain. That was the life of having a weird name. Later on, I heard even hiring managers would throw away my resume because of the difficult pronunciation. They behave the way they do because they can, and probably liked that there was not a thing anyone could do about it. Yet the grandees remained infallibly sensitive to any inquiry, curiously enough.

In any case, I also spent the occasional time then cleaning the floor near my bed with rug cleaner I swiped from under the kitchen sink. That was necessary sometimes. After pulling some comics out to read, I would spray the area down, drying it with a towel. Had to be done. After I cleaned, I could hear some voices outside my window, murmurs really, nothing coherent. I looked out the window and saw our two doors down neighbors across the street, Mr. Myers and his wife, standing outside the Coyles house, talking with them on a familiar subject. I knew Mr. Myers’ wife was a former nun, but was always discouraged in mentioning it. It was too interesting to speak of.

I must have only caught the tail end of their conversation, as Mr. Myers, quite seventy-something was walking towards me, back to his house. Yet he stopped himself and turned back to the rotund Mr. Coyle. I couldn’t hear him, but his lips were easy to read and he was waving his hand side to side, palm down as if in dismissal of any other idea. I could see Mr. Myers clearly say to the Coyles, Don’t sell to no blacks. It couldn’t be said just once, evidently.

Interesting that the Myers and Coyles had probably known each other for decades up to that point. They lived on Browning Road long before the time my parents arrived there from Philadelphia; so, this was also an end of an era for them, though the message remained clear. Oddly enough, Bob and Marion Coyle didn’t move very far from Pennsauken at all. Though they were moving away, they were staying in New Jersey. Just a little further eastward to the Atlantic County area, to be closer to their daughter who lived there, as she only recently had their first grandchild.

I forget what Bob Coyle did for a living, he had been retired for at least a little while. I think he was a salesman of some sort; Marion Coyle was a housewife. At the time of planting that infamous for sale sign, the Coyles were in their early fifties. This of course was back when a middle-class couple could retire in their fifties, something myself and my friends would not have when we reached their age, and even that with a seeming lack of survivor’s guilt on the part of the haves.

The Coyles had the benefit of being born at the right time to be able to simply retire, put their house up for sale, and move closer to their grandchildren. Baby Boomer heaven, no false consolation for them, it was real. The Coyles’ immediate descendants never had what they had. Less. I wonder if they ever felt bad about that. I wonder if it was ever given any thought. Doubtful, however sad.

In my room (I still called it mine), I always kept my door shut and often locked. It’s not private otherwise. Christy was at my door, trying to shove her big basset nose underneath to at least smell what could be going on; she had the curiosity twice that of a cat, and was a better pet all around for it. I liked placing my fingers under the door to provoke her attention and I would always know she was wagging her white tipped tail, hoping to get inside and see what was going on. The dog was always welcome. If anyone else was home, the door would stay closed.

Ever absent minded, I forgot the towel was still on the floor, and walked back over it in my bare feet now wet from my steps. I cleaned that floor fairly often as I peed on it during the night. Such a petty thing, looking back, but I was scared to leave the room at night. The fear was working when it shouldn’t. Yet keeping me afraid had more than one purpose.

The bathroom was across the hall at that house, next to my parents’ room. From where Joey slept in his room, he had a clear view down the hall. Some late evening before the beginning of the exodus, I got up from bed one night to go to the bathroom. As if I tripped some alert wire he set, Joey noticed I was up and about and he wasn’t. Even in the dark, I could still see via moonlight his skinny face with that near permanent venomous sneer, or more often with me, his never ceasing, vile gaze. Always the demonic scowl through his skinny, sharp teeth. I existed and he hated me for it. Nothing was ever done to address this, or even recognize it, and that was not right.

What the hell are you doing? he demanded. Yes, I could still see him in the darkness, his sheets up to his neck, furious with me as if he caught me in the act of robbing a bank, if not a murder. Smug scorn from an abusive criminal. Joey’s vindictive eyes pierced into me, and I froze, overwhelmed with guilt; for what I did not know. Bullies never want you to know. More power that way.

I have to go to the bathroom, I said to him, pointing to the door. What the hell was his problem? Kids like him do not provide explanations. He only shook his head at me in disapproval, the head shaking alone clearly informing me no, you can’t go to the bathroom. In fact, you’re not.

I remember shaking my head back at him; the little monster immediately jumped out of bed and made it as if he was going to come after me if I disobeyed him. He did it all quietly, the malicious whispers so our parents would not hear. Art of the bully, and by that point he was a seasoned artist. I would never have anything he didn’t. Not by one inch. Joey had no qualms about fighting. Bullies know how to win. He would hit me; and the lanky, egotistical asshole that he was, he would make it hurt. What no one once ever took into consideration was that the physical act of being punched, even in the face, is not what scares the victim. It’s not the pain, it’s the fear, the humiliation, the degradation from the bully that matters. They are the worst nightmares, and most consider them winners, even then. Too many actually like it, and will never admit it. Yet they do.

He stared down at me until I relented. I went back to bed, and still had to go in a big way so I ended up peeing on the floor next to my bed. That’s how all this started, whenever I had to get up to go, I didn’t. It was not every night, but Joey could have been shot with tranquilizers and would still wake up at the drop of a dime to stop me from being out of bed when he wasn’t. I was not to ever get ahead of him, even to pee.

Me being up and about the house after bedtime, specifically his bedtime, even if just to go to the bathroom, meant that I was, however briefly, his superior; and he would never tolerate that. I can’t have something that he has, and certainly not if he doesn’t. I was not important enough to be up and about the house for any reason. I supposed he felt that, again, however briefly; me being out of bed and him not, made me cooler than him somehow. Even so, he won. That being the whole idea.

So, that’s why I cleaned my floor with the door shut. You have to go somewhere. So, when I had to go, there I was. The rest of that day I continued to wonder why my family was so increasingly apprehensive because the Coyles were leaving, and I could vaguely overhear some voices from across the street. That same Saturday we had to head over to Philly to visit my grandmother, routine for the time. My grandmother, Marie, lost her husband some years before, now it was only her, so we visited often. Unless a major holiday, my dad stayed at home while we visited, also routine. My grandfather was fun, and actually friendly. He didn’t make me feel like an intruder, a nuisance, or an expense. That was a man that could be loved, not feared. But he was gone, and all that was left by then was memories. Treasured, yes, but never good enough.

Kids, being kids, we took forever to get ready to go that day. I was ready first. That didn’t matter. My mother didn’t want to leave yet because Grace Bergen next door was out on her porch, watching the neighborhood. Barbara could not take a trip to the grocery store without Grace watching and asking, Where are you going, Barbara? She would not even step out of the house if Grace was on her porch.

Later, even after we had all moved, I used to refer to such nosy neighbor sensitivity as Grace Bergen Syndrome. My mother always hated that phrase. In fact, she often denied this was ever a problem at all. For all its power, denial is sensitive to itself. Entirely on cue, Barbara told us we couldn’t leave that day until Grace goes inside so we would just have to wait. I asked her why this was an issue. That happened. A seven-year-old boy asked his mother why they couldn’t take a ride as planned because Grace Bergen was out on the porch, always there, old and limpy, irritating old voice, grey and retired as she was. This is what she did with her life. Outlandish. Or terrifying. Kind of both.

Yet ask and challenge, I did. My mother didn’t answer, only shouted me down because the question alone was out of line enough as it was. I told her it was ridiculous, and she raised her hand up as if she would slap me but didn’t. Not her way, but she certainly wanted to, which was just as bad. Barbara just shook her head at me, her favorite. Then she stared down at me until I stopped asking questions. Cheap ploy but it works, wretchedly. No consequences, though there actually were.

Eventually, Barbara was brave enough to venture outside, and as luck would have it, Grace was not on the porch. All was clear. I beat my brother outside after we were told to get ready to leave again, nearly an hour after we were told the first time. I got ahead of him, in a sense. Yet for the social experiment I chose to run, that was something else entirely.

Joey had not left the house yet, so my mother and I would have to wait for him. I know she wanted him to move it along, Grace could come back out at any time. Without ever being told that this was a rule, I was always expected to sit in the back whenever we drove somewhere. Joey always rode shotgun. The front seat was always his without fail. Not this time. I climbed into the front seat. It felt admittedly strange being there, but I liked it, and asked myself as to why I always had to sit in the back anyway. I knew it was an unpardonable crime.

My mother almost had a seizure. Her entire body twitching in discomfort, as if being strangled by invisible ghosts under her own skin; sheer terror in her eyes for that transgression. She didn’t say anything at first. Joey was still inside. Barbara looked at me up and down in shock, her mouth gaping at me. Her breathing noticeably lost any of its normal rhythm. Grace Bergen was no longer on her mind at this point. Then her left eye started blinking rapidly.

What are you doing, Jack? she said now looking at our own house door, horrified that I dared or even thought of what I was doing.

I can sit here, I told her. I got here first and he’s taking his sweet time. There is no reason I can’t sit here. Incidentally, why does he always have to sit in the front? What’s the big deal?

My mother, an apparent adult, downed a hard swallow, she could have been sweating, not fearing for her life but getting there.

I just don’t want any fights, okay? Is all she said in response. I relented, hating myself all the more for it. As I was getting up to get out of the car, my brother came out of the house.

Get the hell out of there! he said. Barbara turned away as if the boss was yelling at one of his subordinates at work. She didn’t actually have a boss, and Joey was certainly not in charge. Could have fooled him.

What the hell do you think you’re doing? Joey sneered. Don’t piss me off! You heard me, you little shit! Joey was only at maybe fifty percent Joey as he settled down in the front seat, frowning and shaking his head at such an intrusion, and then started working the radio. Not saying a word, my mother put the car in reverse back down the driveway. The color of fear. Social experiment completed.

There were reasons in addition to the consequences. It was never mentioned. Not once in any given point